Hollywood heads into the fourth quarter chastened by a barrage of critical brickbats but surprisingly plump in terms of box office revenue. According to Paul Dergarabedian, who analyzes box office trends, 2003 totals might even beat last year's record-breaking $9.3 billion haul. "We may not reach the 1.6 billion admissions from last year, but with ticket price inflation, I wouldn't be surprised if the numbers actually beat last year in terms of revenue," said Dergarabedian, president of Exhibitor Relations Inc.

"Assuming 'The Matrix: Revolutions' and those other big tent pole movies take off, there's a lot of money to be made and we'll probably wind up with a revenue record for this year," Dergarabedian said.

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Attendance for the summer was down a tad -- .15 percent compared to last year -- but grosses are up about 2.5 percent, thanks to a late-summer surge of semi-hits that boosted bottom lines during the typically tepid August doldrums.

Three consecutive up weekends at the end of the summer were fueled in large part by "Freddy vs. Jason," "Freaky Friday" and a couple of others that performed pretty well.

"There was this vibe, mid-summer, about how disappointing the movies were, critically speaking," Dergarabedian said. "But despite negative commentary, this will wind up being a record-breaking summer revenue-wise."

Beginning in November, big-budget features will do the heavy lifting on the commercial front, which means studios can relax bottom-line expectations in September and October. "In the fall, studios are not necessarily chasing that big summer dollar," Dergarabedian noted, "so it allows them to put out some of the offbeat, more artistically driven films."

-- Flop city: Will "Project Greenlight" get the green light? After two seasons, HBO's hit TV series has spawned two consecutive film flops. 2003's contest winner, "The Battle of Shaker Heights," cost $1 million to make. Since its release August 22, the film has taken in about $262,000. The competition's first winner, "Stolen Summer," grossed $135,000 last year. Generating more buzz than cash, Ben Affleck and Matt Damon's experiment in populist filmmaking may be in jeopardy.

"As we did after the first season . . . we will evaluate the situation based on our internal criteria and come to a decision when we are comfortable, " said a Miramax spokesperson.

-- Distracted: Two years ago this week a little movie called "In the Bedroom" made a huge impact at the Toronto Film Festival. Over the next few months, the slow-simmering psychodrama would become the year's most talked about indie film, snagging a Best Picture Oscar nomination and catapulting its director, Todd Field, onto the must-call list of every production exec in town.

So what happened? Barely a peep has been heard from Field. When I called him last week, he answered his own phone and chuckled when asked how all that Oscar hoopla had affected his career. "It was a big distraction," Field said dryly.

"It's not like I've been holed up in a cave," he said. "I'd love to be shooting somewhere. I wish I could just go out and direct something for hire. I'm just not built that way."

Not that Field didn't have the opportunity. In the wake of "In the Bedroom's" rapturous reception, Field says, "I was offered everything under the moon, from big action movies to big-costume dramas, you name it. That's what happens when somebody becomes a 20-year overnight success story. It was completely surreal."

Field, who is also an actor, turned all the offers down. "Six months later, my talent agent would send me to go in to read for a fourth-banana role for a script that I'd passed on as a director. I'm like, 'I guess I could have given myself a much better part if I'd directed the film.' I probably could have done very well financially and in other ways if I had taken one of these movies, but I would have felt like a cheap date."

Instead of becoming a shooter-for-hire, Field wrote one original script and two adaptations. He hopes to begin filming one of these stories by next spring.

"I'm a romantic," he said. "Ultimately, you have to find something that you can't stop thinking about every single day, where you wake up every morning and you're possessed by it."